Diversity in foddering strategy and herd management in late Bronze Age Britain: An isotopic investigation of pigs and other fauna from two midden sites

Abstract

Middens of the southern British late Bronze and Iron Age are vast accumulations of cultural debris that can be explained as refuse dumps linked with large periodic feasting events. A distinctive feature of these sites is that their faunal assemblages invariably comprise a considerably higher proportion of pig remains than contemporaneous settlement sites. This paper presents results from a programme of stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope analysis of fauna from two major midden sites, Llanmaes in South Wales and Potterne in Wiltshire. The research aim is to reconstruct husbandry strategies and foddering regimes, particularly concerning pigs, to better understand how the challenges of raising large herds were met. Analysis produced exceptionally wide-ranging results for pigs and other domesticates at both sites, particularly in terms of δ¹⁵N values, demonstrating that diverse foddering strategies were employed. Diversity in the late Bronze Age pig foddering regimes indicates that the Neolithic husbandry practices (focusing on woodland fodder) had not been abandoned, but that new husbandry methods (consumption of household waste) were also being practised, which subsequently became more widely established in the Iron Age. The heterogeneity of signatures suggests that animals may have been husbanded in a piecemeal fashion at a local, household level. This in turn hints that fauna may have been brought to these sites from households across the surrounding landscape, rather than being husbanded by specialist producers in the vicinity of the middens.     

Ritual practices and collective consumption of animal products at the Iron Age rural settlement of Mas Castellar de Pontós (Girona,Spain) (5th–4th centuries BC)

Abstract

Animals have played an important role in certain ceremonies or rites in the past. During such activities, animals may have been alive, dead or been used as raw material. The disposal of detritus from these practices can lead to the formation of faunal assemblages with a particular taxonomic and anatomic composition. At the Iron Age ‘Mas Castellar de Pontós’ site (Girona, Spain), associations of archaeological materials excavated from Pit feature FS362 were suggestive of deposits arising from collective ceremonial consumption. Analysis of the 1309 mammal remains recovered from this feature is used to determine the nature and dynamics of the ceremony. At the same time, the relationship of these faunal remains with the other archaeological materials recovered in the pit will allow light to be shed on the significance and importance of these ceremonies in the framework of the social and political relations that governed the life of the inhabitants of this settlement.     

Roman landscape and agriculture on the Ligurian coast through macro and microremains from a Vada Sabatia well (Vado Ligure,Italy)

Abstract

The results of an analysis on plant remains (fruit, seeds, pollen and wood) found in sediments in a Roman well in Vada Sabatia (Vado Ligure, Liguria, Italy), dated between the first and fourth centuries AD are presented. The remains are well preserved and constitute an exceptional record of the Ligurian area. Five layers have been recognised: three corresponding to the well when in use and two to the well when it was no longer in use. The vegetational cover of the area has been found to be similar to that observed in the coastal plain near Albingaunum (Albenga) pertaining to the same period. Moreover, the two superficial layers have cumulated a large amount of macroremains related to the period in which the well was no longer in use. The principal tree and vegetable crops and cereals of the coastal plain were present, due to the influence of maritime and mercantile trade, as were the prevailing ruderal and weed species and the tree cover. The presence of carpological remains of Castanea sativa, Secale cereale, Beta vulgaris and Cucumis sativus is reported for the first time in the Roman Age in Liguria. The influence of the arrival of the Romans can be seen from new crops, such as Prunus persica, and the introduction of exotic fruit like Phoenix dactylifera and Ziziphus jujuba. Several wooden artefacts, for example, a rack for drying lucerne and a tool handle, made of Cornus or Viburnum and Viburnum cf. lantana respectively, have been found. The well has proved to be an ideal location for the preservation of plant remains compared with other studied archaeological situations in Liguria and in Southern France, as it presents a higher variety of cultivated fruits, vegetables and cereals.     

Plant use and crop husbandry in an early Neolithic village: Vaihingen an der Enz,Baden-Württemberg

Abstract

Rescue excavations carried out during the 1970s at the Iron Age hillfort of Broxmouth in East Lothian produced a small assemblage of fish bone. Despite some uncertainties surrounding the recovery of this material, recent analysis has produced highly unusual results. In particular, the presence of large specimens of ling and other species raises the possibility that the Broxmouth community was, at least periodically, engaged in deep-sea fishing. This suggestion is at variance with present understandings of Iron Age fishing strategies which generally envisage more expedient practices, such as line fishing from the shore. Indeed, it has even been suggested that the consumption of fish was avoided altogether in Iron Age Britain, for religious or cosmological reasons. The composition of the Broxmouth assemblage thus has potentially important implications for our understanding of Iron Age marine exploitation.     

Historical Perspectives on Pre-Colonial Irrigation in Southern Africa

Abstract

One of the basic areas of interaction between water as natural resource and human societies as agents of cultural transformation is the technology of irrigation. In Africa at least 66 per cent of the available water is used for purposes of irrigation. For more than 4 000 years irrigation has secured food supplies for humans on a continent that is noted for its relative shortage of sufficient natural water supplies.

There is a remarkable hidden power of water in the history of southern Africa. This is particularly the case when we consider the development of early irrigation technologies of Iron Age farmers. The small irrigation furrow of the subsistence farmer was just as important to an insular community of Bantu-speaking people in pre-colonial times, as is the sophisticated irrigation technology in present-day South Africa. Currently there is a paucity of information about pre-colonial indigenous irrigation technology. This can be ascribed to a number of factors of which the invasion of modern Western traditions in the nineteenth century is perhaps the most important. A number of other factors for the apparent blind-spot is also presented in this study.

In southern Africa there are traces of indigenous pre-colonial irrigation works at sites such as Nyanga in Zimbabwe; the Limpopo River Valley; Mpumalanga; and South Africa's eastern Highveld. Reference is also made in this article to specific strategies of irrigation used by Iron Age communities, prior to the advent of a colonial presence. Finally, attention is also drawn to pre-colonial land tenure and state formation against the backdrop of Wittfogel's theories on hydraulic society.     

Coire a’ Cheud‐chnoic,the ‘hummocky moraine’ of Glen Torridon

EUROPE

France; A Geographical Survey. By P. Pinchemel, translated by C. Trollope and A. J. Hunt. 454 pp. Illustrations, Tables, Bibliography. Bell, London, 1969. 100s.

Italy. By George Kish. 8 × 5 1/4. 125 pp. 12 figures and index. Van Nostrand, New York, 1969. $1.lb95.

AFRICA

A Historical Geography of Ghana. By Kwamima B. Dickson. 15#lb5 × 23.lb5 cms. xiv + 379 pp., 58 maps and diagrams, 7 tables, appendices, bibliography, index. Cambridge U.P., London, 1969. 150s.

The Soil Resources of Tropical Africa. Edited by R. P. Moss. 8 1/2 × 5 1/2. Cambridge University Press, 1968. £2.

ASIA

Afghanistan. By Ludolph Fischer. Geomedical Monograph Series No. 2, 12 × 8 1/2. Text (German and English), 16 plates and 10 maps. Springer‐Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg and New York, 1968. DM48, $12.lb00.

GEOLOGY AND GEOMORPHOLOGY

Readings in the Earth Sciences, Vols. 1 and 2. 11 1/4 × 8 1/2 Published W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1969. 94s. each.

Fife and Angus Geology. By A. R. MacGregor. 266 pp. Blackwood, Edinburgh and London, 1968. 21s.

METEOROLOGY

Essentials of Meteorology. By D. H. McIntosh and A. S. Thorn. 8 1/2 × 5 1/2. xv + 239 pp., numerous illustrations, answers to problems. Taylor and Francis, London. 20s.

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

Industrial Britain: The North West. By David M. Smith. 10 × 6 1/4, 271 pp., 36 figures, 31 plates, bibliography and statistical appendix. David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1969. 95s.

Industrial Demand for Water: A study of South East England. By Judith Anne Rees. 8 1/2 × 5 1/2 L.S.E. Research Monographs 3, xiv + 194 pp., Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969, London. 65s.

CARTOGRAPHY AND MAPS

The Antonine Wall. Ordnance Survey 2 1/2 Inch Map. 1969. 11s.

Maps and Air Photographs. By G. C. Dickinson. 10 × 17 1/2. xiv + 286 pp. Edward Arnold, London, 1969. 45s.

Atlas Four. 10 1/2 × 8 1/2. 115pages, + index 60 pages. Collins/Longmans, 1969. 15s.

EDUCATIONAL

Learning Through the Environment. By Muriel F. S. Hopkins. 7 3/4 × 5 1/8. 151 pages, 26 figures. Longmans, London. 1969. 15s.

Investigating Geography. By J. Philip Dodd. 9 3/4 × 7 1/4. 214 pp., 192 figures. Heinemann, London, 1969. 15s.

The London Regional Geographies. Book 3: Asia. By Leonard Hadlow and Reginald Abbott. 8 1/2 × 5 1/2. 294 pp., 145 figs. U. of London Press, 1969. 18s.

A Geography of Manufacturing. By H. R. Jarrett. 8 3/4 × 5 3/4. xvii + 349 pp. 67 illustrations. Macdonald &; Evans, 1969, London. 35s.

The Mediterranean Lands. By J. Brannigan and H. R. Jarrett. The New Certificate Geography Series: Advanced Level. 9 × 5l. xiv + 620, 150 illustrations. Macdonald and Evans Ltd., 1969. 38s.     

Exchange networks of the Early Bronze Age Gulf: The imported ceramics from Kalba 4 (United Arab Emirates)

Imported ceramics from Early Bronze Age contexts in southeast Arabia illustrate a complex multidirectional network of material and social interactions at this time. Significant socioeconomic changes that occurred in the Hafit (3200–2800 B.C.) and Umm an-Nar (2800–2000 B.C.) periods have been linked to external demand for copper, which is argued to have stimulated a change in subsistence patterns. Similarly, disruption to long-distance exchange networks by external factors has been cited as driving change at the end of the Umm an-Nar period. Archaeological evidence from the region suggests a shift in the direction of exchange from Mesopotamia to the Indus occurred around the middle of the third millennium B.C. However, a recent analysis of Mesopotamian historical sources has highlighted the scale of state-organised textile production for export to the lower Gulf in the later third millennium B.C. The site of Kalba 4 has a stratified sequence of occupation deposits dating from the Umm an-Nar and Iron Age (1300–300 B.C.). In this study, a typological analysis of imported ceramics is used to locate the Kalba in the chronological framework of the region and discuss the changing networks of long-distance exchange that were operating. The imported pottery at Kalba 4 indicates that the inhabitants of the site were exchanging goods with a range of polities, including southern Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley (Meluhha), southeast Iran (Marhashi) and Bahrain (Dilmun). A significant quantity of Late Akkadian ceramics at the site suggests it became an important location for Mesopotamian trade at this time.     

The nature of third-millennium settlement: The example of al-Tikha (Rustaq) an Umm an-Nar site on the Batinah coast of Oman

al-Tikha is a mid to large Umm an-Nar (c. 2700–2000 BC) settlement situated near Rustaq at the back of the Southern Batinah coastal plain in the Sultanate of Oman that was discovered (or rediscovered) in 2014. The site is unique because its layout and spatial organisation are very largely (possibly completely) visible on the surface. This includes two separate areas of stone-built housing, a large pottery scatter of varying density, three or four typical Umm an-Nar round towers and a small cemetery consisting of at least four tombs, along with a few other features. The layout of the site is described and discussed in detail, in particular, in relation to what it might tell us about the nature of Umm an-Nar settlement and social organisation more generally. The location of the site within a pattern of repeating Umm an-Nar settlement along Wadi Far (Wādī al-Farʿī) is also described and discussed.     

河北徐水东黑山遗址出土铁器的实验研究

本文对河北徐水东黑山遗址出土的66件战国至唐宋时期铁器样品进行了碳十四年代测定、金相组织观察和夹杂物成分分析,认为该遗址内出土的铁器制作年代集中于战国两汉时期,铁器的材质全为生铁和生铁制钢产品．采用了铸造、退火、炒钢、淬火以及可能存在的灌钢等工艺,同时该地区至少在汉代已能根据不同的材质和工艺制作不同的器物．本研究为深入认识战国两汉时期太行山东麓北段的钢铁技术提供了新的科学材料。